Ireland ranked 33rd out of 35 global economies captured by the survey, trailing European competitors such as Sweden (third), the Netherlands (seventh), the UK (18th) and Germany (15th), coming in behind Spain (32nd).
Japan and China ranked first and second in the global table.
Hays said the ranking should be a warning against complacency. While the country scored well in some areas, the overall ranking was dragged down by the so-called pillars of talent value (35th) and talent market flexibility (32nd).
Those placings were driven by high operational costs and growing pressure on skills availability in key sectors.
“The findings reflect the pressures of a market nearing full employment, where rising business and wage costs present an ongoing need to enhance productivity,” Hays said.
Barney Ely, senior managing director for Ireland at Hays, said: “The new global talent tracker shows that while Ireland has a resilient and innovative workforce, there are still areas where we need to invest and improve to stay competitive with other European countries.”
Other reports have warned that we are losing economic dynamism
A relatively poor ranking for talent development (20th) points to the ongoing need for investment in Ireland’s education and training infrastructure, to ensure it keeps producing the specialised skills required to fuel its world-class knowledge sectors into the future, they said.
The findings – that high costs and weak skill pipelines – are threatening Ireland’s long-term competitiveness echo concerns raised over the summer by the State’s own National Competitiveness and Productivity Council (NCPC).
It warned of a potential repeat of the loss of economic dynamism that preceded the Celtic Tiger bust, after the IMD World Competitiveness Rankings for 2025 showed Ireland slip from fourth to seventh place globally.
The IMD business school’s index assesses 69 economies based on their ability to create and maintain a competitive business environment, taking in more than 262 indicators grouped across four pillars: economic performance, government efficiency, business efficiency and infrastructure.
The new Hays global talent tracker is more narrowly focused on the workforce and has been developed by economic advisory firm Oxford Economics.
It evaluates countries across what it says are five pillars of workforce quality: talent value, talent participation, talent development, talent market flexibility and talent innovation.
Ireland did score in the global top 10 for talent innovation (ninth) and talent participation (10th), but that was offset by poor performances elsewhere.?
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